


A Letter from the Dragonborn

by NonSequitur



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Letters, Love, Skuldafn, Sovngarde, main quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 18:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2859962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonSequitur/pseuds/NonSequitur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dragonborn writes a letter of apology to his wife, Senna, before leaving for Skuldafn and Sovngarde. Her response is not what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Letter from the Dragonborn

**Author's Note:**

> Just something that popped into my head while playing a few days ago, so there probably won't be any follow-ups.

My dearest Senna,

I can’t imagine any other reaction than hate, or perhaps resignation, from you upon answering the door and seeing a messenger rather than myself, but I must ask you to refrain from passing judgment on your too-often absent husband. Bear with me a few paragraphs, my dear, and perhaps when you’ve finished reading you’ll have found fewer reasons to curse my name than you thought you might at the beginning (though it’s possible you might have more, I suppose).

I know our time together has been less than fulfilling, that your family might ask what you expected from marrying little more than an aimless wanderer, that even now I’m working only to worsen your view of me, being too cowardly to say these things to you and instead leaving the job to an inadequate quill and parchment. In my defense in the latter regard, I can only say that if what I’m about to tell you were not so urgent a matter, I would certainly be coming home to you for good. As it stands, perhaps it’s better that you have the option to take what I have to say in small doses, or refuse to hear it at all, rather than be forced to listen to me stutter explanations and apologies for hours.

My love, I’m sorry. We should have waited. I would not have asked your hand had I known the path the gods had set me on, to spare you having to be party to it. Would that I could be home with you right this moment, to forget the world and damn the consequences, for I fear the task ahead of me is a bitter one.

Enough of this meandering and depressive monologue. I am not telling you anything you don’t already know.

It is with a fluttering hope that I write these next lines, for the aforementioned path may soon be drawing to a close. I’ve told you of the time I’ve spent with the Greybeards during my long disappearances, and the many factions at work to keep me running about all of Tamriel while you were left at home, unable to join me. It seems that all this has indeed been leading up to a resolution, that the fate known as “dragonborn” does in fact exist, and that the power I wield has been given to me through some divine rite— It seems that there may truly be an end to the wing’d and fang’d menace that has haunted Skyrim these past months, and only I am capable of achieving it.

My love, we have trapped a dragon in Whiterun, in Dragonsreach. One of Alduin’s lieutenants. He has promised to take me to Alduin himself, where we might battle a final time and decide the fate of the world once and for all. But Senna, how can I trust the word of a dragon—especially one who promises that this road most certainly ends in Sovngarde, where Alduin takes his respite? Yet what other choice do I have? What other choice does the world have? How I wish I had your level head at my side!

Even now the Jarl waits for me to put the final strokes to this parchment and entrust it to the messenger. He is anxious to see the dragon we trapped gone from his palace, lest it lose its tentatively good nature and burn all to ash around us. Odahviing awaits my command, reluctant though I am to give it to him.

My dearest, patient, loving Senna, I must go to face either my end of days or Alduin’s. I know not whether I shall return. Even if I strike victorious, what guarantee is there that once I’ve entered Sovngarde, I can return to you whole, and not as a shade? There is none, my love. I regret so much for your sake, but I cannot regret loving you. If the world and I survive this final encounter, and if you will still have me after all, then I swear I will not leave your side again.

Yours, with all my heart,

_Magnus_

 

Magnus,

You are a selfish man, and you know that were I to tell you that you were no longer welcome in Hjerim, I would be within my rights to say so.

But you act as though I didn’t know full well what I was getting into when I married you. I am a devout priestess of Dibella, one with direct contact to her Sybil; do you think my goddess would not send me signs to warn me of my future? Dibella is a goddess of love, would she leave her devout priestess to vexation with no word from her divine lips to guide me?

No, dear heart. I may not know your future, but I’ve had whispers of mine. I know that we will be happy—and because we haven’t been yet, I believe you will return to me whole so that we can fulfill that future. And then perhaps we will see about changing my statement that you and I are the only people in Skyrim worth loving, hm? I think my heart has made room for more.

Take the world by storm, dearest.

_Senna_


End file.
